* SJ-R…

State Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, who says he will run for attorney general in 2018, on Wednesday apologized for how he referred to Republican candidate Erika Harold when discussing the office last week.

“I’ve seen the reaction to the comment that I made, and I don’t blame anybody for being offended,” Raoul told The State Journal-Register. “If I read them without the full context of our full conversation, I would have the same reaction. … I take full responsibility for the bad characterization.”

Raoul told the newspaper on Friday, after Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced she would not seek another term, that “I think Lisa would have acquitted herself well against Miss America. I don’t know what’s behind the attorney general’s decision … but I doubt seriously it was any fear of Erika Harold.” […]

Raoul was issuing a video Wednesday with the announcement of his 2018 candidacy, he said.

* Meanwhile, Maze Jackson started out his WVON broadcast this morning by saying…

So, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday I got a note that came down from the top that suggested that I should apologize to the WVON listeners for bringing the streets to my listeners.

He was referring, of course, to yesterday’s on-air interview of Sen. Raoul which devolved into a street-style argument.

Jackson said he had trouble sleeping last night. “I couldn’t believe the conversation digressed to the level it did,” he said, but admitted to being an “antagonist.”

He also acknowledged the bad blood between the two going into the interview, and said his public comments have caused issues in his business, among his friends and even within his own family. Jackson is well known for calling out black politicians on a daily basis, and they and their supporters are just not accustomed to those sorts of attacks coming from WVON.

After he appeared to read from a long statement, Jackson said “I apologize to every listener that I offended with yesterday’s exchange.”

“I enjoy what I do, I love what I do every day,” he went on to say, “But sometimes maybe I’ve gone too far, and my sincerest apologies, especially to the intelligentsia that I’ve offended, to the people who took time to write letters that were outraged by what happened yesterday.”

And then he acknowledged that the show wasn’t supposed to be his “personal vendetta.” Instead, he said, “This is the mic of WVON.”

* He did not apologize to Sen. Raoul.

Jackson, you’ll recall, pointedly asked Raoul to respond clearly to a question. Raoul obviously took offense and it very quickly devolved into a verbal sparring match.